Wednesday, 25 January 2012

OK, ok, so I know I've already given a really, really long post about the Rapunzel's Tower cake I made for Tangled at the Disney Night Finale. However, this wasn't my first choice of baked goodie for the 50th Disney Classic. You see, way back when I can't remember, I came across this recipe for white chocolate and macadamia brownies. Now, I'm a massive fan of white chocolate and macadamia anything, but what really drew me to this recipe was that these particular brownies, not being brown, were actually called "blondies". Perfect! In the movie Flynn's not-so-affectionate-to-begin-with nick name for Rapunzel is "Blondie", so these fitted in with the movie, and would be delicious, so they were on the list next to Tangled for a long time.

The problem was, as the finale grew closer, and the Disney Movie gang planned on having a big fancy-dress BBQ to celebrate, I started to realise that blondies weren't really "grande finale" material. I mean, they were delicious, seriously delicious, like so delicious I would recommend that if you only try one recipe from this whole blog that this is the one you try delicious.They just didn't seem to express the joy/sadness/relief that came with the approaching end of a project that took over a year of our lives. And so the tower cake was born.

But, (there's always a but!) white chocoate macadamia brownies just seemed like the right thing to do. So I did both. It's not the first time I've baked two different things for one movie (Robin Hood had two recipes, and Make Mine Music saw three varieties of Whoopie Pie produced!) and this was going to be the last one, so I don't feel bad. Doubled the baked goods = double the fun!

Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4 and grease and line a square baking tin.

Heat a medium sized pan of water until just boiling, then remove from the heat. Place the margarine and half of the white chocolate into a glass bowl and rest this in the pan of hot water. Stir continuously until the margarine and chocolate have completely melted, taking extra special care not to get any water in the bowl of chocolate. Once the margarine and chocolate have completely melted and combined, remove from the pan of water and leave to one side to cool slightly.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar and vanilla essence. Once combined (and once it has cooled sufficiently!) add the chocolate and margarine mixture to to the eggs and sugar and continue to whisk until a smooth and glossy batter has formed.

Add the flour, salt, remaining chocolate and macadamia nuts to the batter and fold in until only just combined. Pour the batter into the prepared baking tin and bake for 20 minutes, or until springy to the touch and completely golden on top.

Allow the blondies to cool in the pan for at least 15 minutes before cutting into squares to serve. Best served slightly warm!

Well, here's where I'd normally say what I'll be baking next time, but without any further Disney classics on the cards for a while, I'm afraid there isn't a "next time" as yet! Don't be too sad though, because Disney morals teach us to see every end as a new beginning, and coming to the end of one collection may just signify the right time to start another collection. Watch this space, and until then...

Sunday, 22 January 2012

This post has been a long time coming, I know. The final Disney Night was actually held at the end of July 2011, but unfortunately shortly after that a very close family member became seriously ill and subsequently passed away at the end of August, so I never got round to finishing this post, or publishing it. However, I'm not one to leave things unfinished, so here's the post - better late than never!

With Tangled being the 50th and final Disney Classic (to date) I wanted to make something a bit special. Not only would it be our last Disney Movie Night, but it would mark the end of 16 months of hard work. 50(ish) cakes for 50 films is a huge achievement, so I wanted to make this one the best. This would be what Cinderella's Castle Cake should have been - a yumtastic WOW didyoureallymakethat?? type cake. So I decided on Rapunzel's Tower. ^_^ (and we had a fancy-dress BBQ and let off sky lanterns and everything!! Pics below!)

Now, this cake took me the best part of two days and was a lot of work, which makes for an awfully long and possibly confusing post so you'll have to accept my apologies!

The cake took 2 days in total (but I was doing other things too so it's probably could be cut down to 1 day) and created 48 slices.

You will also need a large round cookie cutter, an extra large round cookie cutter (around an inch bigger than the other), a large cake board, 3 smaller cake boards, a 16 inch dowel, plus a number of smaller dowels (the size of these does not matter too much as they will be trimmed to size.)

Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4 and grease 3 square baking tins.

Sift the cocoa powder, flour, salt, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder into a bowl and put this to one side. In a separate bowl or jug, mix together the milk and water. In a third (very large) bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until creamy, the add the eggs one at a time until the mixture is light and fluffy.

Fold a third of the dry mixture into the batter, followed by half of the wet mixture. Repeat until all of the ingredients are combined (always ending with dry ingredients so as not to over-beat!)

Share the batter evenly between the three baking tins and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of each layer comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool in the pan for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

While the cakes are cooling, trim your cake boards down to size. The large one will be used for the base, so leave that how it is. However, this cake will be made of 4 parts, and three of these will need custom-cut boards under the, so get trimming those boards! You'll need one board to be the size of your smaller cookie cutter, one to be the size of your larger cookie cutter, and the third to be about an inch wider than the larger cookie cutter. Create a hole in the centre of all three boards for the dowel to go through.

Prepare the icing. In a very large bowl (I had to do this in two batches!) mix the shortening, icing sugar, a splash of milk and vanilla extract together until smooth and creamy. Add more milk to soften the mixture if needed, but try not to make it too runny. Colour around 1/4 or the mixture green, 1/8 lilac, 1/8 dark brown and the rest a pale cream/beige colour.

Once the cakes have cooled, cut out your shapes. You'll need 5 of the smaller sized circles and 3 large circles. Do not discard the leftover cake yet, as you'll be using this for the roof!

Note: here's where it might get a bit confusing! start to assemble the cake by creating four "sections" as follows:

Section one - the base of the tower. Place one of the larger circles onto a plate and spread a thin layer of icing on the top. Place 2 of the small circles on top of this (sandwiched with icing), then carve into the larger circle at an angle to give a "trapeze" type shape. (See pics for reference!)

Section two - the tower. Place one of the smaller circles of cake onto the smallest cake board you trimmed down. Spread a thin layer of icing on top of this, then place another small circle on top of this one. Again place a thin layer of icing on top, followed by the final small circle.

Section three - the house. Sandwich the two remaining large circles of cake together with a little frosting, then place onto the middle-sized board you cut earlier.

Section 4 - the roof. After cutting your circles out of the square cake, you should find you have a number of almost triangular shaped pieces remaining. Use these to create the roof on the largest of the boards you cut. (You may have to stick some pieces together with icing to achieve the correct shape.)

Once you have your four sections assemble, give each one a "crumb coat". That is, spread a thin layer of icing over each one to help stick the crumbs to the cake, and to give a smooth surface for your icing. Once you've crumb coated each section, pop it in the fridge for at least an hour to set. Note: sections 1, 2 and 3 will be iced in the cream/beige colour, and section 4 (the roof) will be iced lilac, so it's probably best to use these colours for your crumb coat!

Whilst your crumb coat is setting, you can prepare your serving board by covering it in a layer of green frosting. Press the flat side of a spatula onto the frosting and lift up to create texture.

Once the crumb coats have set, removed the sections from the fridge as you need them for icing and assembly. Start with the base of the tower (section 1) Spread a smooth layer of cream/beige icing on this, then place it onto the prepared cake board. Place your large 16 inch dowel into the middle of this, then add four smaller dowels (around 5mm taller than the cake) around this, as if you were pin pointing N, S, E and W.

Remove the tower (section 2) from the fridge, and again spread a smooth layer of the cream/beige coloured icing around this. Using the hole you create in the middle of the cake board as a guide, ease this onto the large dowel in the centre of the cake. The cake board at the bottom of this section should rest comfortably on the shorter dowels placed in the base. You'll probably have to touch up the icing at this stage (I know mine had a big hand-print in it!) so just run a little more icing over the two section to hide the seam. (I failed at this - you can clearly see on my cake where the joint was!) Again add four dowels that are slightly taller than the cake, although this time try to pin-point NE, NW, SE and SW.

Next work on section 3, the house. Ice this all over with the cream/beige icing, then pipe on some of the wood detail. Like with the last section, use the hole you made in the centre of the cake board to place this cake on top of the other, and over the centre dowel. The board at the bottom will rest against the smaller dowels to prevent the cake collapsing under it's own weight, and the large dowel in the centre will prevent the four sections from slipping off one another. Again you'll need to put 4 small dowels into this section of the cake, this time going back to pin-pointing N, S, E and W.

Finally take out the roof and give this a layer of lilac icing. Like the previous sections, place this cake on top of the other, using the hole in the centre of the board to slot onto the large dowel. You'll probably find that your dowel stick out of the top of the cake a little - this is intentional, just cover it with icing and use this as the point at the top of the tower. (I had to do this as there was no way I could have got my cake that thin without it breaking!)

Now your cake is fully assembled, go back and pipe the remaining details. I fund that I needed to g over all of my "woodwork" details to make them stand out, and I also piped on the "beams" under the "house" part of the tower. Pipe on green frosting to give the impression of climbing ivy. Et voila - Rapunzel's tower!

So, if I was going to do this again I would probably decorate it with fondant icing, as I'm not very neat with butter cream/frosting. This was actually a sort of trial run for the wedding cake which I was asked to make for a friend, as they wanted one of their towers to be chocolate, and for butter cream frosting. I'd also spend more time on finishing touches, like adding flowers and maybe a little fondant Pascal, but after two days of baking at the same time as making my own version of Belle's ball gown and preparing a BBQ, I was quite happy to leave it as it was. Would I make it again? Definitely. And I'll post the pics here if I do!

Well... If I'm right that makes all 50 films in the Disney Classic collection to date baked! It has been one hell of a journey, and with so many hiccoughs along the way it took almost twice as long as we originally expected it to. But I had a blast, and I think the others did too!

Search for Recipes

About Me

I am a real life Disney Princess; Disney taught me almost everything I need to know in life. My friends and family taught me everything else.
I put my heart and soul into everything I do, except cleaning. At times I could be called bossy, but I prefer passionate. I am the "organiser" in the majority of situations. I spend way too much time on the internet in general, and on Facebook in particular.
I like to bake cakes and then eat them.

Sources

I always try to provide sources if I'm using someone else's recipe or taking inspiration from them, so if there isn't a source listed then the recipe belongs to me. All images of the bakes belong to me too. Everything to do with Disney and/or Pixar films, titles, characters and images of the films, titles and characters belongs to the Walt Disney Company. I love you - please don't sue me.